The Economics of Domestic Violence: Evidence From Bangladesh

Summary

This project aims to test the scalability and cost-effectiveness of edutainment-soap operas designed to challenge harmful social norms and promote resilience-as a strategy to improve mental health and reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) in rural Bangladesh. Investigators will run a clustered randomized control trial in which villages will be randomized to one of three versions of the same soap opera: (i) Norms: Challenges harmful norms that condone IPV, targeting the belief that violence is an acceptable way to assert control or maintain reputation, (ii) Norms + Skills: builds on the norms campaign by adding CBT-based skills for stress management and non-violent conflict resolution, (iii) Placebo: No violence content. Investigators will evaluate the impact on attitudes towards IPV and IPV incidence.

Conditions

• Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)
• Intimate Partner Violence Prevention

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Edutainment Content: Norms Campaign

Soap opera that challenges harmful norms that condone IPV, targeting the belief that violence is an acceptable way to assert control or maintain reputation.

BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)-based skills

CBT-based skills for stress management and non-violent conflict resolution.

BEHAVIORAL

Edutainment Content: Placebo Campaign

Soap opera that features unrelated non-violent content

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Grand Challenges Canada

  collaborator OTHER

• Weiss Foundation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• World Bank - Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Fund for Innovation in Development

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• USAID Development Innovation Ventures

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• The Agency Fund, International Growth Centre (IGC)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• National Science Foundation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Yale University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Nina Buchmann, PhD · Yale University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-09-19

Primary Completion

2025-12-31

Completion

2025-12-31

Countries

• Bangladesh

Study Locations